STRANDED!: A Backpackers Drive Across the Mozambique Bush
PART I of 3
The following is my account of my last days in Africa in late May to early June 2008:
“Say goodbye to tar, guys. This is the last pavement we’re going to see for at least a week.” said Juri as we turned off the main road coming out of Berra. For several days we would be jamming through the heart of the wild, untracked land of central Mozambique, taking the long way home to South Africa. The going had been slow due to a funeral procession on the “highway” which was littered with gigantic potholes that were about the size of bomb craters. We passed the deceased’s friends and family choking the road. Literally hundreds of people followed in cars, hung on the sides of trucks, and were pulled along in donkeys carts. We were surprised, despite the man’s seeming popularity, that he was being buried in a crudely made wooden box that looked to made of spare scraps of wood. But that’s Africa.
Off of the main road we started an adventure into the prehistory of a hot and steamy earth, and, at times, a world that had been plunged into chaos and despair the likes of which you could only be familiar with by watching Mad Max . This road would take me to places so distant and remote that I would be tested in ways that I have never been tested before. It would challenge my strength, my sanity, my courage and above all, my patience. In the unrelenting world that is rural Africa, patience is the one thing that must be carried in great amounts. It takes mental endurance to deal with all the dangerous roads, the drunk drivers, the masses of starving, groveling people, and dealing with the sense that somehow you do not belong. It often feels that you have landed on a mysterious rock drifting in the universe far from anything that could be called home. At our first stop we could hear the locals rustling in the bushes and see their dark faces poking out from behind trees. Children whispered in strange tongues, welcoming us to Planet Africa.
I had meet Yuri and Sebastian in a bar in Birra a few nights before. I had already had quite the adventure and was mentally preparing myself for a nice few weeks in the sun on the beach as I worked my way down the coast to Maputo, the capital and back to Johannesburg to fly home. I was ready for an easier time as by this point in my travels I had gone about 9,000 miles across southern Africa, having been charged by elephants, mugged at gun point, and transported on the back of a bicycle taxi for 25 kilometers, 40 pounds of gear hanging on my back.. I’d been stuck on one decrepit bus after another, sitting next to what seemed like the same dejected looking African woman with 10 kids, feeding a the same crying baby, with breasts hanging beyond her belly button.
Anyway ,the point being, I was TIRED. When I started talking to two guys about driving through the bush across relatively unexplored territory I said to myself that I could always to a beach. I could go to Thailand or Cabo san Lucus, if I wanted to go to some beach. I came to Africa for an adventure, and this sounded like a perfect opportunity to finish the trip up with a bang. I bought the South Africans a round of beers and agreed to pay my share of the petrol in exchange for a seat in their rig. Little did I know that this would be the biggest adventure I had ever had.
My companions on this journey were typical examples of South African adventurers. Juri, the driver, was a man of 31 years, rather tall, with a rugged face. He had spent his younger days hunting in the Bushfeld of northern South Africa and was well versed in bush travel. He had a few weeks off from his construction job and decided to head out to Mozambique in his Land Rover for an opportunity to put his off road driving skills to the test.
Sebastian was a German immigrant, but he would never tell you that. In his heart (and mind) he was full blood Afrikaans. Sebastian was a real estate agent from Upington, South Africa. Sebastian seemed to be shy, a quiet and reserved man looking to add a little excitement to his life. . He had done much traveling in his life including South America where he picked up a bit of Portuguese. That would be a critical skill in Mozambique as nearly no one speaks English and maybe half speak Portuguese. Sebastian was a neat and organized man. He always knew how much he was spending, how far he was going, just where everything was, and where it was to be put back. Conservative in both religion and politics He was in much contrast with Yuri who had more of a blunt, in your face, just get the job done attitude. Both Sebastian and Juri’s personalities would come in handy in the long and difficult trip.
Then there was me, the lone and dirty backpacker who had been making his way across the continent looking to go somewhere that Lonely Planet had not. My sarcastic comments and punctuated humor was being added to the adverse situations that came to us, and trust me, there were a lot of them to come.
It had been about three hours since we set out from Berra, and we had stopped due to a problem with the emergency blinker lights. It wasn’t of much concern, but it did give did us an excuse to stop and take a break.
I looked under the hood with Juri, as Sebastian went to the Rover to grab TP and walked into the bushes
“ Hey Sebastian! don’t step on any landmines taking a shit, bru!” Juri called, grinning. Always a good thing to look out for in Mozambique as the 20 years of war that only ended a few years before and had left the country gunning for top position on the one legged child charts, due to the amount of unmarked landmines in the bush.
“Okay, maybe I will go a little closer to the road, then” said Sebastian timidly. Carefully walking out of the bush and onto the dirt road.
“Dude, don’t shit on any paths either, you know this is probably like a major byway for locals going from the village to the UNISEF tents and mud bog to get water. Someone is going to probably step on it and slip. Go in the bush. Just don’t step on any mines, you’re okay!” I called to Sebastian jokingly as he walked down the road. We had already established a good camaraderie. Basically it all came down to three guys looking for an adventure .
Another hour down the road we came to our fist river crossing. Locals fished at the river bank and women waited for the men in dugout canoes to shuttle them across to the far bank. A decrepit old ferry moved along an old cable with a small mechanical engine. Rolling slowly onto the deck and getting out to snap photos, our spirits were high. We didn’t know why but something told us this would be a trip to remember. We didn’t know how right we were. About another hour driving down the road we came closer to our destination for the day, the small coastal village of Sofala. Nearing the coast the road turned to a white sand 4×4 road. We passed women with baskets on their heads, as rays of sunlight filtered through the palms, all the while and dodging the enormous baobab trees that were nearly a millennia old. I was pleasantly surprised how clean the village of Sofala was. It was a dark star, a relatively unheard of speck on the map. I had expected the
village to be just another squalor hole of poor dying people. Another village of beggars and touts, of foodless markets with piles of rubbish lining the streets. But there was no rubbish; there didn’t seem to be the bleak and hopeless people that seemed the norm of most villages in Africa. People apprehensively waved and greeted us as we drove by. Sebastian leaning out the window to ask locals the direction to the chief’s home. After receiving some rudimentary instructions, we drove a bit further and met a man sitting on a log whittling a wooden carving too incomplete to tell what the final product would be. I went with Sabastian to talk to the man that we assumed was the chief. Now the chief wasn’t what you might expect. He was not a man brightly dressed, carrying a staff with a shrunken head attached to it, wearing a loin-cloth or something. He just looked like every other dude in the village, just a little older, and a little drunker.
Shaking hands in the traditional way by putting one hand on the elbow and extending the other. he agreed that we could stay in the village for the night. He told us to go to the beach, to the small abandoned compound left by the Portuguese army years ago. We would be welcome there. The village of Sofala was spread out for about 5 kilometers, with thatched huts every 150 meters or so. There was no real center, just dotted thatched huts in the groves of palm trees. It was slow going as we gunned our way through the thick sand before we could see the first row of concrete buildings sitting next to the endless beach, stretching out for miles and miles to the horizon, untouched and unexplored.
Walking barefoot up and down along the white sand, marveling at the immense stretch of tropical beauty as I watched local fishermen pulling in their nets after a day’s catch, I made my way back to set up camp. We found that the established buildings were not abandoned, but inhabited by the fishermen squatting out of reach of government bureaucracy. Of course, as I had learned, you can’t go anywhere in Africa without having someone run up to you and try to sell you something. We watched a local man run down the beach for nearly a mile, coming to sell us a crayfish. I’ll be fair, it was probably the biggest crayfish I had ever seen, and for a mere $2.00 it was ours for dinner. Not a bad buy. As a bonus the local fisherman cooked our crayfish for us, for an additional fee of course. Storm clouds formed of the coast of the Indian Ocean and a cool breeze blew on shore, steadily increasing in velocity. The sun dropped behind the horizon and turned
the sky to fire, silhouetting the palms and baobab trees, forming a black earth in preparation for the deepening darkness that would soon lie over the land.
I awoke in my tent to a pounding rainstorm that soon passed leaving our improvised beach resort in a dense fog. Stepping out to do my morning glory, I did my business overlooking a strange new world that was as unrecognizable as a new face . The earth seemed unworldly. The mist shrouded the trees and dense vegetation. Its thickness smothered the sounds of the ocean. Beyond the flora I could hear wild things moving about. My eyes fixated on a prehistoric land where it seemed man did not belong. It was as if I had time warped to a primeval place of beasts and cold blooded reptiles slyly moving about in the cold distance. I came to think that I was in a place beyond dreams, and beyond time. I couldn’t have felt farther from home.
The locals watched our every move as we struck camp. Pointing and
making comments. We saw them duck into doorways, almost as if frightened by us when we looked at them. It really made me feel like I was an exhibit at the zoo. And I hate to think all the animals in the zoo were thinking what I was thinking ‘what are you looking at? What is so damn interesting about me. Don’t you people have shit to do other than gawk at us all day? We aren’t going to buy anything else, so go fish or make a necklace or something.’ Now remember before you judge me as a mean spirited uncultured monster, I had been putting up with this ‘looking’ for months and it was really annoying me at this point. You just have to be there to understand.
We drove further up the coast in search of the fabled fort left by the Portuguese centuries ago. When at last we found it we were a wee bit disappointed. It seemed only to be a shack where locals apparently threw all
their spare tires and garbage. The fort now was just a home for the dozens of monkeys shagging on the walls surrounding the “fort”. Driving away from the beach we made our way west.
The rain from the night before had left the road a trackless mud field. We came to a wide plain with a narrow track to cross an enormous bog. We could tell that the road was far too narrow to drive across. The only other option was to attempt to freewheel across the field itself . With the engine of the Land Rover whining in the low gear, the wheels throwing up mud to the window, we slipped and slid across the passage until we got ourselves stuck in the dark mud. It was only a short time before local children came running from the village to lend a hand. They used their bare hands, sticks, and machetes to dig us out. Juri rolled the vehicle back and forth with the clutch until we were able to break free and make it back onto the road. As soon as we were in a position to get out and drive off the children surrounded the car pounding on the windows and doors “Give me metica, metica, mister, give me, money!” we quickly drove off as the children
pursued us, as they through mud and small rocks. This may seem cruel and ungrateful, but you have to understand, in Africa you can’t give away anything. You know the old kid’s story ‘If you give a mouse a cookie…’ well it’s the same deal with Africans…….Suddenly, I heard some movement on the back of the Rover coming from outside.
“What was that?” said Sabastian. I looked out my window to see little legs dangling from the roof.
“shit dude, those little bastards are going through our bags!” I said to Juri. The rig came to a halt and we all jumped out the doors to see a small feeble body jumped from the roof, and two others running down the road and diving into the bush.
“Check to see if they took anything, Derek” said Juri.
I climbed on top of the Rover to see all our belongings still in place. “Everything’s cool, I think, those little shits were just hitching a ride” I said.
The road dried in the hot African sun. Our progress soon left a tail of red dust behind us. For miles and miles along our way, men, women and school children flooded the track as they walked from village to village. I was fascinated with the fact that each time we took a break from driving , no matter how deep into the continent we were, or how isolated from humanity it seemed , no matter how far from any town or mere village, there were still eyes peeking out from the bushes. Humanity was everywhere, it was poor, it was dirty, desperate humanity, but it was all around us. There was no escaping it. The road wound into the western hills bordering Zimbabwe. The terrain changed from dry bush to subtropical jungle as our altitude climbed. The sun fell behind the dark green jungles of the mountain side about the time we entered the village of Gogoi. Sebastian talked to a small group of men who told us they were off-duty police. There were only 2
permanent structures in the village. First was this police station and the other one just across from it was a bar. Everything else in the village was just made of thatched huts. We asked permission to stay in their village for the night, and one of the “policemen” took us to a small hut he told us we could use.
While we set up camp there was a constant stream of peoples coming to greet us, including the chief, who seemed quite drunk. He stood there with a dull look upon his face as he shook my hand and spoke to me in his language. The one man who spoke English explained to me that we were most welcomed guests and that we would be safe this night. The chief was kind enough to assigned one of his men to build a fire and collect water for us. He was also told to stay around our camp to make sure that we had our privacy while we ate our dinner. It was very thoughtful of him to assign us a man to basically tell others to piss off. Hell, I wanted to hire the man directly for my own personal use. Just think of it, having a personal servant to buffer you from hawkers and moneychangers, beggars and scavengers. I would have taken that guy everywhere.
Soon everything was dark. I’m talking about DARK dark, Like black-hole of no return kinda’ dark. There was only one faint light in the village, which came from the bar. The locals gathered around inside, yelling and drinking, as music played for hours and at top volume.
That was a disappointing discovery I found about Africa. I had read about the beauty, and brilliance of African music, complete with drums and singing, traditional dancers, and reverent ceremonies. I’m sorry to report that this is a bunch of bullshit. That stuff doesn’t happen in real Africa, and I’m talking about traditional villages where Africans really live, not some tourist safari, meet and greet cultural experience, love fest performance that you get everywhere in South Africa. I’ll tell you what African music is like… I’ll give you the scoop because I have heard it. African music is just a tape of a musician being played through tinny speakers at volumes so loud that it drowns out the music and leaves only the sound of pounding base and muffled lyrics. African music isn’t exactly intricate symphonies either, they just play the same notes over and over again. There is only one riff being played on a guitar, consisting of five
notes on two chords, a wa-wa pedal, and a drum machine to add an element of funk. The same song over, and over, and over until sounds are left echoing in your head long after the music has stopped. Needless to say I didn’t care for the music much. After hours of listening to the same song again and again, I fell asleep on the dirt of my mud hut. By African standards the hut was a good fixer upper, which is probably why I had to share it with roosting chickens and skinny dogs sniffing at my crotch all night .
The roosters roused us about 5 am and we were off soon after, hauling ass down the road as if we were entered in the Paris-Dakar rally. We made good fun by drifting around the bends of the dirt road, scattering locals and animals alike. We were having so much fun, we forgot to keep track of our route, and mid day we found that we were going in the wrong direction. We found ourselves in the village of Chitobe, where we were fortunately able to find petrol for our rig. We filled up the Land Rover and the spare tanks on the roof with leaded gas. The rig took only unleaded but we figured we didn’t have a choice. We had to have gas. As necessary as it was to get Leaded gas it would prove later on to be a monumental mistake. . While the attendant stood by the large drum of gasoline smoking a cigarette, we asked the locals about the road out of town. They directed us towards a track that led in the direction of the Save river, where we hoped to spend
the night. This road wasn’t on the huge and detailed Michelin map of southern Africa, but we were told that although difficult, the road would lead us to the river.
With a deep breath we made like Whitman on The A Road Less Traveled. The rough route left us rocking and rolling across the undiscovered African bush. This really was basically unexplored territory. We were so far off our map that we were driving across the Michelin mans nipples on the front page. We were all keyed up knowing that we were making this happen, pursuing a real African adventure, and pushing the threshold of discovery. The jolting road was filled with washed out ditches and encroaching brush, making for very challenging driving. My head hit the roof of the Rover a few times as we dropped into gigantic sinkholes at racing speeds. Accelerating over small rises, the vehicle became nearly airborne more than once. Finally, we broke through the bush and found ourselves overlooking the Save river. Our excitement soon turned to uncertainty, as there was no apparent means to cross, no bridge, no ferry, no way in hell we were going to get to the
other side unless we drove ourselves. Our hearts sank as we looked across the deep sands and dark water of the river. “So what are we going to do Juri?” I asked after we scouted unsuccessfully for a fording point. “Well, we don’t have much choice, we are going to have get across the river somehow, we can’t go back. We have come too far.” he said “Ja, we will just cross.”
“Oh brother,” I sighed “You’re right. We can’t go back, but it’s too deep, dude. I don’t know. I got a bad feeling about this. We will be sleeping with the crocodiles if we can’t…you really think we can make it?”
“Well we will see, wont we” said Juri, grinning unconcernedly.
We drove up and down the river bank looking for a place where the river seemed shallower, but it was hard to tell, for the river was over 100meters across and we couldn’t test the depth by wading due to the crocodiles floating just under the surface of the slow moving current. I was beginning to share Sabastian’s concern and apprehension about the river. I started to think there was no way across, and if there was I didn’t know if I wanted to risk becoming mired in the middle of the stream. Juri, grew frustrated as we spent almost another 2 hours looking for a place to cross. It seemed hopeless. After all we had accomplished our exploration seemed to be over, just like that, at the side of the Save river.
As we were about to give up hope, an older native man appeared along the track, and we asked him if he knew of a safe ford. The old man nodded his head, then asked in Portuguese “Have you come to shoot my elephants? Do you come to take my lions away?”. “No, we are just driving, just tourists, and a bit lost” said Sabation. So it was agreed he would guide us. We put the old man named Simon in the front so he could show us the way. He guided us off the road, and we dodged through bush and trees, until the brush opened up to a large field where Simon told us to stay as the old man walked off in the direction of the river and left us sitting in the field unknowing, hesitant, and apprehensive. We could do nothing but sit and wait for our guide to return as the sun fell over the dusty land.
“Where the fuck is this guy?” asked Juri as he sat on top of the Rover after many minutes of waiting
“The dude leaves us in this field. He’s probably gone to get is buddies to come out with machetes and hack us up after dark. What a complete ass-hole” I said.
“Where the fuck is this guy? SIMONE!…SIMONE!…fucking kaffir.
I don’t believe he just left out in the dark, because he was telling us there have been a number of lion attacks in the area. With that I climbed to the relative safety of the top of the Rover. The sun had gone down and we were abandoned in the bush. We had no choice but turn around and start driving back. As we drove through the bush back to the “road” we saw Simone and a younger man running through the bush after us, calling for us to stop. When we did he said that he had found a place to cross. The part that was unsettling was that he said he ‘found’ a place to cross and not ‘the’ place to cross that he supposedly knew about. Anyways, he hopped in the front seat, guiding us with his hands through the bush. There wasn’t much light now as we broke on through to the banks of the Save river. There was a sandy flood plain of almost a kilometer wide that we had to drive across to get to the actual river.
We were stuck once in the sand, and Sabastian, the younger black, and myself had to dig our vehicle out. Juri had instructed us to just jump on the back of the rig because once we got moving across the sand that he couldn’t, and wouldn’t stop. So, as we pulled out of the hole the three of us ran after the rover and jumped on the rear bumper, clinging onto the roof rack as we made our way across the sand towards the river. The sun had been down for 20 minutes and it was very close to dark when we made it to the bank of the river. Juri kept going. Closer to the water, it appeared Juri had no intention of stopping.
“Isn’t he going to check it out?” I cried to Sabastian, clinging for dear life next to me.
“Juri, are we going to look first?” Sabastian called out, to which Juri replied simply “NO!”
‘Oh shit, this is nuts, man!” I said before taking a deep breath and tightening my grip. The rover pulled through the sandy banks of the river. My heart raced as I could see the gleaming eyes of two crocodiles lingering in the water close to the shore.
The moment of truth! With a burst of acceleration the Land Rover dove into the river. The water rushed over the top of the hood as the three of us clung desperately to the roof rack. Inside the Rover Juri kept his foot on the accelerator, as water rushed over the windshield blinding his view. Simone, in the front seat, kept telling him “strait, strait! Go strait”. Clutching desperately, my heart raced as I heard the engine struggling and the water churning all around us. The water was a meter deep by now. The Rover slowed in its deepest part and nearly stopped before picking up the last bit of traction on the sand and kept pulling. We had made it passed the high water mark as the Rover lifted slowly out of the River.
“We’re gonna’ make it ! We’re going to fucking make it!” I yelled as the last bits of water rolled off the hood, and spun from the wheels before we hit the sandy far side of the river. We all began to yell with excitement. It had been like those last moments in Return of the Jedi when Lando calrision flies the Millennium Falcon out of the Death Star just before it blows up. “Holy shit! We made it! We fucking did it, Ha!” I exclaimed. Sabastian was also sharing my exuberance, just not swearing as much. Up the bank of the river we rolled over rocks and ditches through a small pass on the river bank. Sabation and I were nearly pitched off the back as we hit the large holes that nearly threw us off the rig. Juri drove up onto the flat ground and came to a stop, where Sabation and I jumped off to dance around in disbelief at what we had just accomplished. We all thought it was impossible including Juri, but we went for it anyways. It was now
dark and by some stroke of luck and fate we’d managed to make it to the far side of the Save river. Our bold undaunted courage had lead us to the closest thing to a frontier left in the world.
New and wild lands void of anything familiar. We were in the deepest wilds of Africa. Boldly exploring where so, so few had ever traveled. I felt like shouting out “dear mom and dad, all my friends at home, I have landed on planet Africa!” We pressed onto the village of Masengena where we would spend the night.
Over the next week our luck would not hold out. Our test would soon come. And along the banks of the Limpopo River where we would reach the next day would become the climax of my African odyssey.
Tags: Africa, Mozambique, Tag Index